


In Other Words

by hoshi_ni_natte



Category: Gintama
Genre: Ambiguous Relationships, M/M, theyre horny though., zura and tatsuma are also there for like two seconds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:53:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25108774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoshi_ni_natte/pseuds/hoshi_ni_natte
Summary: “And where the hell do you think you’re looking?”Gintoki swallows, sheepish, shallow. He resists the urge to meet Takasugi’s gaze, resists the urge to reach out and touch his bandages, the urge to sigh,‘I could ask you the same thing.’Instead, he keeps his eyes down, on where the hem of Takasugi’s bathrobe’s parted halfway up his thighs, and skims his fingertips along the skin on his knee just to curb the longing. Then, Gintoki shrugs. “‘m horny.”Takasugilaughs—that snide, derisive, cynical little laugh he does— and places a hand over Gintoki’s rather than swatting it away, much to Gintoki’s surprise. Takasugi’s almost content simply relishing how dumbfounded that finds Gintoki; he almost forgives Gintoki for lying right through his teeth, straight to his face.
Relationships: Sakata Gintoki/Takasugi Shinsuke
Comments: 2
Kudos: 51





	In Other Words

**Author's Note:**

> rejected title: Bathrobes are Just the Kimono’s Sad, Unattractive Kinda-Friend that No One Wants Around
> 
> *gestures stupidly at this senseless anticlimactic word-vomit gintaka fic* i wrote this for myself but you can read it too. if you do though im sorry. implied ambiguous poly joui4 just because i like it but it's mostly gintaka not knowing what being horny actually means they just need each other and it's a mess. dont worry about when or where this is set. i have no idea either

“Is it stuck?” Takasugi offers, tone stale but enough to catch Gintoki’s stalled attention. “Won’t tell you to knock that nasty habit off since it’s hopeless at this point, but what a shame— losing the hand you swore to take me out with to a piece of snot, of all things.”

It’s not Takasugi’s weightless words that bring Gintoki back to his senses; it’s the light shaking of Takasugi’s shoulders, the small sound he makes in the back of his throat when he turns on a heel and simpers to himself. In his half-drunk daze, Gintoki’s been idly picking his nose and hiccupping like a brat, but he’d stopped moving altogether, stopped thinking, all in favor of taking Takasugi in: the sight of him fresh from a soak in the bath wearing a matching complimentary bathrobe, a new roll of bandages from wherever in hand.

Takasugi knows that Gintoki knows that it was just a poor attempt at some witty remark, for the sake of saying something, _anything._ Because it didn’t seem right to ask him what he was suddenly staring at, and why so intently, why with those eyes. So Takasugi anticipates the inevitable retort, as that would be more like them, more like how they ought to be.

“I talk big, so my boogers are big,” Gintoki acknowledges in a fake serious tone, distracting, as if he weren’t choosing literally the first thing he could think of and running with it to piss off Takasugi who’d sobered up enough to _be_ pissed off. “It’ll be lethal if Gin-san flicks this at you, y’know? In fact, Gin-san can _so_ end you with just this. It’s a super special finishing move, and you’re wide open.”

_“Scaaary,”_ Takasugi hums, amusement and annoyance mild in the chuckle he has enough of himself to hold. Standing perfectly still, he lowers his voice instead, raises his arms in a gesture of feigned surrender. “Then slay me right here right now, if you can.”

Gintoki gets the passing thought that empty threats really do reap empty challenges. When he glances at his pinky there is no such threatening booger to respond to Takasugi’s challenging back. Besides, Gintoki may be an idiot, but he’s not the kind to fall for cheap provocation. That’s where he and Takasugi differ. _“Nah,”_ he yawns, “Tatsuma’ll have our asses if we go at it in a place like this.”

Languidly moving to unravel the bandages, Takasugi agrees. They were rare, but moments when they let Tatsuma properly play peacemaker did exist, and right now happens to be one of them. They could argue that because renting this place isn’t on their tab, they could _very well_ go at it with the only consequence being a certain lady’s handprint on that guy’s face for the foreseeable future, since he’ll jollily write it off, laugh it off with Zura. But for that very cause, too, they could also pretend that they haven’t only ever been good-for-nothing’s at the onset and behave, for an untimely and unnecessary change of pace.

They’re of the same sentiment, Gintoki and Takasugi, because, well, when are they _not,_ really? Graciously deciding to drop it, Gintoki puts his hand down and uses it to brace an arm on the tatami as he leans back, narrowing his eyes at Takasugi when he quietly settles onto the cushion next to him without bothering to tuck his legs in. It’s not like they couldn’t reject an invitation to a reunion this time around and it’s not like they can’t refuse Zura and Tatsuma, but playing nice is fine every now and then. Of course, _only_ every now and then.

Takasugi sets the bandages onto the table next to soiled dishes and empty sake bottles, making to dress his left eye. He lifts one end of the strip to his temple and holds it steady with one hand, his elbow propped up on a knee. His other hand, he uses to guide the bandage around his head, carefully slipping tufts of his hair out from under as he went before tightening. When Takasugi senses it again, the weight of Gintoki’s gaze heavy with intent and…whatever, he elects to ignore it for now lest they waste their spit on another useless conversation.

Gintoki tilts his head at him. Takasugi’s a beast as far as everyone’s concerned (that’s the whole world, by the way, in all its rotten glory), but sitting there relaxed and tending to himself, he doesn’t look like one who readily becomes slave to his bloodlust, his vindictiveness, his nihilism. Looks can be so deceiving sometimes. There’s something so oddly methodical— _graceful? delicate?—_ to the way Takasugi is working his fingers, like each motion was carefully choreographed and faithfully practiced. Gintoki throws his head back at the thought and shakes it, to remind himself that it’s natural, isn’t it? Takasugi’s at peace at the moment, even if all that means is not running on the adrenaline that a battle or a fresh wound would give him in exchange for alcohol and a bath. More importantly, that injury was from—

_“—Gintoki,”_ Takasugi drawls, breaking him out of his trance. He even clicks his tongue, because the awkwardness is a pain and plain irritating at this point; he can feel a vein on his temple throbbing through the canvas. “What is it? Don’t tell me you’re gonna ask if I need help with this.”

“Wasn’t gonna, pretty sure you don’t,” Gintoki argues without thinking, steadying his dizzy head because he swears he just heard shot-up yakulk swishing in his skull. Furrowing his brows and looking off, he mutters, “Was just wondering.”

“Just wondering _what?”_ Takasugi tests, half-heartedly; he isn’t keen on having a conversation over how or why Gintoki can tell he doesn’t need help in this state. He doesn’t want an actual response, either. Memories of never letting anyone even dare to get close to him as he cursed and nursed this injury entirely by himself are things neither of them are in the mood or mindset for right now.

_“Hmm…”_ Gintoki’s expression instantly brightens as he straightens up, and he animatedly puts his thumb and index finger on his chin now, squinting and examining Takasugi’s posture and pose. He’s running with a stray thought again: “Did you always use to sit like that?” It’s the same whether Takasugi was in his hakama, hanging out at the dojo or temple, or in his uniform pants, making plans in their absolute dump of a war camp. “You _did,_ didn’t you? Now that I think about it, even when you wear a kimono…” Gintoki leans into Takasugi’s thighs and nods to himself thoughtfully. “You always sit with your legs like that. Seems like you’ve got your own nasty habits. Not saying anything though.”

“You’re saying _plenty,”_ Takasugi quips, scorning the relief that rises in his chest at the fact that Gintoki very obviously pulled that out of his ass, like the expert in complaining about anything and everything that he is. Takasugi raises an eyebrow in irritation and accusation—he’d hit Gintoki up his head for leisurely invading his personal space if his hands weren’t occupied with fastening the bandages temporarily. He sees an opening and swings his elbow into Gintoki’s face anyway. “And where the hell do you think you’re looking?”

Gintoki swallows, sheepish, shallow. He resists the urge to meet Takasugi’s gaze, resists the urge to reach out and touch his bandages, the urge to sigh, _‘I could ask you the same thing.’_ Instead, he keeps his eyes down, on where the hem of Takasugi’s bathrobe’s parted halfway up his thighs, and skims his fingertips along the skin on his knee just to curb the longing. Then, Gintoki shrugs. “‘m horny.”

Takasugi _laughs_ —that snide, derisive, cynical little laugh he does— and places a hand over Gintoki’s rather than swatting it away, much to Gintoki’s surprise. Takasugi’s almost content simply relishing how dumbfounded that finds Gintoki; he almost forgives Gintoki for lying right through his teeth, straight to his face.

It’s a pretty pathetic cop-out, Gintoki at least admits, because _unfortunately,_ Takasugi’s well-aware of what Gintoki’s actually like when he’s actually horny, and they’d be far past their silly, flimsy version of flirting by now if he actually meant it. He gets the growing suspicion that Takasugi doesn’t even buy it for a second. But it’s hard to berate himself for it, because regardless it earns him a shove onto his back and Takasugi’s warmth washing over him.

Gintoki follows the motion intimately, with his eyes then with his hands: the hem of Takasugi’s bathrobe shifting wider apart and riding farther up to accommodate the way his thighs spread when he straddles Gintoki’s hips. Truth be told, tease him for his height as he’s done so all this time, Gintoki _does_ have a thing for Takasugi’s legs, so even if he could lie about being horny a few seconds ago he definitely couldn’t _now._ But for one reason or another, he finds this infinitely less stimulating than when Takasugi’s in the yukata he usually wears.

_In other words,_ Takasugi concludes, Gintoki’s the kind of pervert who thinks a proper, ornate kimono disheveled by a fight, or a fuck, or both, is thoroughly sexier than a bathrobe that’s thin and short to begin with. Gintoki’s developed a helpless preference for golden butterflies in purple skies against Takasugi’s skin, and he’s committed every glimpse of it, whether deliberately stolen or purely incidental _during_ a fight or a fuck or both, to memory and his own pleasure. How could a bathrobe like this even begin to compare? Taking advantage of the slight, subtle disappointment in Gintoki’s face, Takasugi gets a word in: “Why not wait for Zura and Tatsuma? They’ll be much easier than me. I put you through hell.”

“I put you through hell, too,” Gintoki mumbles absentmindedly, removing a palm from under Takasugi’s bathrobe and smoothing it up his clothed waist, over his shoulder, and when Gintoki cranes his neck he cups the nape of Takasugi’s to pull him in. Then he skates his fingers up the damp skin there, threads them through Takasugi’s hair, gentle and uncharacteristically so—it catches Takasugi off guard, and calms him down, and riles him to high heavens, all in exactly equal measure. Quite vexed and notwithstanding his own words, Takasugi goes down easily.

Until he freezes. Gintoki’s fingers fumble with the bandages until they come loose, and Takasugi starts reasoning again—Zura and Tatsuma could leave them for dead after pleading with them not to fight while they sneak off under the ruse of making arrangements for more drinks, but they couldn’t take his sword. The idea of cutting Gintoki’s hand off himself once and for all before those two rematerialize is becoming extremely appealing. But all things considered, because this isn’t worth keeping score over, it’d be faster to just punch Gintoki’s lights out as punishment for outrageously mistaking the suggestion of sex for the intimacy it takes to cut each other open and lay each other bare.

Takasugi’s in the middle of winding up when Gintoki succeeds, and his bandages come undone completely. The canvas falls as if in slow motion, and it soundlessly settles atop Gintoki’s right eye, like an eyepatch that’s both crude and artistic in its own right. Takasugi’s breath catches in his throat and his hand moves on its own, fingers unclenching from his unthrown punch and fitting over the bandages, his nails so close to Gintoki’s left eye that he shuts it, too.

It’s arresting Gintoki’s every breath and movement, so much for a ruthless demon dressed in white, and most notably it’s arresting his sight, his lights as intended. Startled but not scared, Gintoki lets his face drain of emotion, but all it does is betray his trust in him. Even when Gintoki opens his mouth to speak his voice is barely there, but Takasugi hears it loud and clear: “What kind of play is this? I’m vulnerable here.”

“…Say, Gintoki…” Takasugi starts gravely, taking a deep breath in and pressing down on the breath out— not for any pain, just for some pressure, to punctuate the next thing he says because he can’t hold it in when in the end Gintoki’s vulnerability is, has always been, and will always be his own: “If I crushed this eye, if I’m the last thing you—”

_“—I wouldn’t mind,”_ Gintoki answers before he’s even finished asking his question, blinking and straining his left eye to look at Takasugi’s against the light. “When it happened to you you didn’t even flinch.” He glides his hand to Takasugi’s cheek, thumbing at the lashes of his closed eye reverently. Gintoki vividly recalls that it took a blade blinding this to numb Takasugi of his desperation, his despair, for long enough to give him the chance to quit until it ultimately began howling inside of him and swearing to burn everything to the ground, even if he had to burn himself down along with it. That’s Takasugi all over. So, Gintoki smiles, giving in: “Where were you looking? What did the sky look like then?”

“Don’t remember…” Takasugi whispers, forcing himself to stop trembling, because Gintoki’s looking _through_ him and he hates that smile—serene, like he’s about to lose it and cry his heart out— and Takasugi hates how it makes him feel with every filthy fiber of his being. Resolve weakened, broken, he pulls his hand back and relieves Gintoki’s eye. “…That was ten years ago.”

“And yet,” Gintoki replaces Takasugi’s hand on his eye with his own, scratching at the bandage as he points out airily, “you still cover it up like it was just yesterday.” Dread flashes in Takasugi’s face at the very true implication that it _does_ still hurt like it was just yesterday. It truly is all Gintoki can do to wordlessly wonder if Takasugi can even cry with that eye anymore, lament things that _only that eye_ can see anymore. Gintoki hesitates, because all at once Takasugi looks like he’s reliving every battle he’s ever fought, every elating win and every excruciating loss.

Takasugi doesn’t struggle despite being utterly and undeniably tormented. The back of his eyes are stinging and his arm is burning where Gintoki’s grabbed him to keep him from leaving as if he would, if he even could. Gintoki’s gaze is piercing and Takasugi chokes up, chewing his bottom lip through the answer that’s taken him this long to finally, finally dredge up: “…It looked like it was gonna fucking rain.”

“Then it started…” Gintoki continues, his grip on Takasugi loosening as he drags the bandages away from them. “…and never stopped… right? They say hell is full of fire but personally I think it’s just bad weather either way.” Gintoki closes his eyes again, and under Takasugi like this, he feels like he’s lying in wait for rain, too. “Already said you don’t need it but if it helps, I’ll probably never stop hurting either. If we’re in a sinking ship in a storm, at least it’s together. Not something to be happy about, but hey, it’s _something,_ am I right? _”_

_Right?_ Another one of those laughs escapes Takasugi at that—it’s just no good. They loathe this world more than anything, each other more than anyone, but each other are all they have when this world’s begging to move on, leave them behind to make their lives a living hell with acid rain that will never let up on wounds that will never heal no matter what they do or where they go or who they find. It’s more than they can stand, but it’s more than they can ask for, too, so Takasugi grabs the collars of Gintoki’s bathrobe and tugs, to claim both his misery and his comfort. “So we’re doomed, aren’t we—”

_“—Kintoki, Takasugi!”_ Tatsuma’s voice rings out in the corridor across them along with erratic stomping, “We’re back! Wha—Zura, why would we need to _knock!”_

Takasugi bites his tongue and spares a glance, a _glare_ at the door. Insane that the obnoxious voice of someone who’s constantly got his head in the clouds and the stars can ground him so quickly, bring him back like he weren’t just about to go through hell with Gintoki. Speaking of, he looks at Gintoki slackly, because his eyes are clearing now, too. Cutting the awkwardness out without delay, he rolls his shoulders and tips back. “So? Wanna let them catch us doing this or what?”

“We’re not doing _anything,_ ” Gintoki insists, arm falling flat beside him unceremoniously. “Wish we were though, to be honest—didn’t I just end up helping you with these?” Gintoki fiddles with the bandages, and he starts rerolling them, focusing like it’s the most stimulating thing on the planet. “Besides, you’re the one who wanted to wait for Zura and Tatsuma. The night is young, Takasugi.”

The door slides opens with a bang and Zura drops whatever it was he’d brought over, Tatsuma is positively howling. In one last feat of defiance, Takasugi lets himself fall, knocking the bandages out of Gintoki’s hands, the wind out of Gintoki’s lungs, using both the impact and his lips. Takasugi hides his face in his chest, uses his thighs as leverage and moves his hips against Gintoki’s, because at the end of the day and at the end of the road, it’s the same. It’s _all_ the same when it’s with Gintoki.

Takasugi comes up for breath and smirks at the flush on Gintok’s skin, then throws the smirk over to Tatsuma and Zura, too. It’s a sure invitation for them to come get their asses over here, and whatever else they got in tow. A little more alcohol in Gintoki’s system and they can trick him into thinking anything the morning after, so, when he finds Takasugi bare of his bathrobe and bandages, he’ll hopefully, thankfully, have forgotten what came before those are flung across the room.

**Author's Note:**

> by the way im the one who has a thing for takasugi's legs so it's a blessing to me that he doesnt know how to sit. idk about gintoki im just projecting. i truly despise myself. thanks for reading this vague mess. dont fight me just move on


End file.
